Three Jacksonville City Council committees approved a 10-year contract extension deal Monday for garbage hauler Waste Pro that would expand recycling efforts and switch the company to using trucks powered by compressed natural gas.

The votes clear the way for a decision by the full council Tuesday on a new version of a bill (2013-39) Council President Bill Bishop had originally fashioned as a one-year extension meant to leave the city time to negotiate a new deal.

Waste Pro, which serves about 70,000 homes in the Southside and Mandarin, would spend close to $20 million up-front on new trucks and waste containers—two per home – as well as building a fueling facility to dispense compressed natural gas, a cheaper, greener fuel the diesel used now.

The city pays waste haulers for the fuel they use, and the fuel switch would lower the city’s fuel bill more than $40,000 a month at current prices, Councilman John Crescimbeni told members of the Finance, Rules and Transportation, Energy and Utilities committees. The three panels met jointly to review legislation that Crescimbeni had drafted as a substitute to Bishop’s legislation.

That savings would help cover some of the costs involved in switching the company to equipment that would help Waste Pro switch to “single-stream” recycling, in which far more waste at each home can be reused rather than hauled to the landfill.

Early results from use of single-stream recycling in neighborhoods served by another company, Southland Waste, showed an 87 percent jump in the amount of waste recycled. City officials cheered that because it reduces the overall cost of waste hauling.

In addition to having a new fuel source, the new trucks would be designed for “automated” service, which uses robot arms to lift and empty 96-gallon containers used for the new recycling system.

The large containers have drawn scorn from some customers who say they’re size makes them unwieldy, but Councilman Bill Gulliford told the committees “I move my 96 gallon container around quite easily.”

The original version of Bishop’s bill had been filed just ahead of a bill by Councilman Richard Clark that had sought to have the city seek competitive bids from other waste haulers for a contract that mandated automated service, but not compressed natural gas use.

@Central Intelligence, you were reading closely, so thank you. Crescimbeni, who had been shepherding this substitute bill, wanted to have a facility that could fuel both the garbage trucks and city vehicles. But he dropped that because there would have been big logistical problems getting the city vehicles regularly arrayed at Waste Pro's facility. As I understand it, fueling up a vehicle with CNG is a fairly slow process (measured in hours), unless you spend more up-front to equip the station for what's called "fast fill" refueling, which apparently also carries extra maintenance costs. All the details were being worked out in a piece of legislation meant as a substitute for a simpler bill that in effect kicked the contract down the road, and arranging city vehicle access to Waste Pro's fueling station more complexity, and cost, than the bill's backers had an appetite for.

IMHO do you really think Waste pro is going to consume that initial investment of $20 million? NO!

They will indeed pass it on to the city and consumer. They also FAIL to mention that at the end of the contract if the city goes with another hauler the city has to pay waste pro for approx. 170 thousand of those containers. You can bet they are not cheap either so they have us by the short hairs.

No bid contracts suck for tax payer and this contract is a no win contract for the people that have to pay for it all